posted Aug 6th, 2008 - The 8-way poll of the expected medal winners at the World Meet 2008 offer the first real surprise. The French national team is still in 1st place. However, Italy's 8-way team Ex3mo has taken the 2nd place and is currently ahead of Team USA 8.

The US team members don't even think of a competition with Ex3mo. The only position that is of interest for the US competition veterans is the one on the very top of the leaderboard.

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Two members will even try to defend gold medals in France next week. Better: they will try to win gold medals again. John Hoover and Eric Heinsheimer are Golden Knights 8-way world champions of 1997.

They will compete to maintain even more honors. The Army's 8-way team of 1997 posted the highest meet average in 8-way history with the 22.4 at he World Meet in Turkey. John Hoover and Eric Heinsheimer, together with Charlie Brown, Trevor McCarthy, Vernon Miller, Carey Mills, Paul Raspino and Scott Rhodes, still own the official IPC world record of 31 points for a single round, as well. The 31-pointer was posted on 17 September 1997 in Efes, Turkey.

Four other Golden Knights (Matt Davidson, Kurt Isenbarger, Brian Krause, Sean Sweeney) will try their best to help their famous team mates defend the records. Thomas Hughes and Doug Park, former Fastrax members, complete the high-profile lineup of the US 8-way team. Multiple Airspeed 4-way and 8-way world champion Kirk Verner is the alternate, Larry Miller is filming the team.

Team USA 8 will need the best of the best since the real defending 8-way world champion of 2006, France, will not only try to defend the gold medals of the World Meet in Germany and keep Excalibur in France.

Mathieu Bernier, Guillaume Bernier, Julien Degen, Clement Martin St. Leon, Bruno Perin, Erwan Pouliquen, Jeremie Rollett, Emmanuel Sarrazin, Stéphane Mistrot Dit Pachet (Camera) and Damien Sorlin (Alternate) want to break the 11-year old scoring records, as well.

France won the World Meet 2006 in Germany over Arizona Airspeed by four points (20.5 - 19.8) after six rounds. The 2006 lineup remained almost unchanged for the following two years. The only personnel change added 4-way and 8-way veteran Erwan Pouliquen as the player coach to the 2007 and 2008 lineup.

The French 8-way scores did not get much higher in 2007. France easily won the FAI World Cup 2007 with a 20.4 average. However, there was no US 8-way team in Russia last year, and the Russian 8-way team, bronze medalist of 2006, did not offer much resistance with an 18.4 average.

France will be challenged more seriously this year, and the challenger will be the US team, even though the polls currently show Italy in 2nd place.

Team USA 8 has the talent, the experience and enough training to beat the French scores of 2006 and 2007. It will be up to the French 8-way team whether they will come up with the scoring and performance level of the Golden Knights in 1997 or allow the US team to get close enough for a serious competition.

Defeating the US 8-way team and breaking the 1997 records is not the only challenge for the French 8-way team of 2008. There is the other self-inflicted difficulty of double duties for the brothers Guillaume and Mathieu Bernier, Julien Degen and Jeremie Rollet. They will also compete in 4-way.

The French 4-way team members did not master the same challenge to perfection last year at the FAI World Cup 2007, even though the US teams did not even compete in Russia. France won the 8-way event, but Belgium's Hayabusa Defence stole the 4-way gold medals in a jump-off.

The second competition of the Coupe de France 2008 was supposed to serve as the final 2008 test of double duties for the French national 8-way and 4-way lineups. The event was completely weathered out, and the World Cup 2007 was the last and only competition where the double-duty situation was experienced in real life.

The veterans of Team USA 8, John Hoover and Eric Heinsheimer, are fully aware of the additional work for the four French 8-way competitors, and they know that there is a possibility for distraction and stress. The French 4-way lineup is young and has a lot of energy. However, it still is a serious challenge to compete well in both events.

It seems as if it could be an 8-way battle between talent and experience beginning on Sunday. And who knows? Maybe the NSL News audience has it right, and the underdog from Italy might benefit from tension and stress on both sides of the gold medals...

The polls are still open for votes and comments.

18th FAI World Formation Skydiving Championships 2008
Who will win medals in 8-way?	France - Maubeuge USA - KnightTrax Italy - Ex3mo Germany - EADS United Kingdom - Connextion
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